Once It's Gone
by Nightgazer13
Summary: Silly Zelda. A childhood really isn't the sort of thing you can get back…


_I don't own anything. Especially not Link or any other LoZ properties._

_Anywho..._

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><p>The young man sat in the back corner of the bar, staring at the ceiling as his fingers tapped idly against the wall. The young waitress smiled seductively at him as she brought him another drink. Perhaps it was because he tipped well, or maybe because there were so few patrons in the place. It might even be that she genuinely found him attractive. It didn't matter to Link; he'd be gone soon enough and she'd likely forget he ever existed. In the meantime he smiled back, paid for his drink, and returned his gaze to the ceiling.<p>

This was a travelers' inn, and the crossroads outside ran in all four of the cardinal directions. He'd come from the east, so that left him with three other choices. Let's see, north would take him… eh, what did it matter? Any way is as good as any other when you don't know where you're going. Having determined that, his thoughts drifted back to how he'd gotten here in the first place.

After defeating Ganon and completing his duties as Hero of Time, Zelda had sent Link back into the past to "reclaim his childhood". After all of the horror and bloodshed that he'd gone through for Hyrule's sake, Link was perfectly willing to accept the offer. He could return to the forest with Navi, and be a normal Kokiri boy, at least for a little while. It would have been great if things had gone so smoothly, but Link just didn't seem to have that kind of luck. Almost the moment he'd returned, Navi had said her goodbyes and flown away. She'd just… left him there, without so much as a single word of explanation.

The loss was devastating. He'd been the Kokiri boy without a fairy for the first ten years of life, and then when a fairy did finally come it was apparently only so that she could guide him through one deathtrap after the next until her job was done. She'd kept Link safe and informed through his entire journey, and she was the closest, dearest, most loyal friend anyone could have ever asked for, and then she just…

Zelda.

Zelda would know what was going on. He needed to talk to her anyhow. The adult Zelda had said that he'd need to speak to her younger self about Ganondorf, to help her expose him as the threat he was. They'd prevent that tragedy from ever happening, and then she could fix this. Maybe the spell had gone wrong or something. She could fix this.

But he was wrong.

After once again sneaking past the guards he came into the royal courtyard to find a Zelda who clearly didn't remember him.

At all.

Surely something had gone wrong. She wouldn't have sent him back without being able to remember him somehow, right? Fortunately, he'd had plenty of evidence of Ganon's wrongdoings prepared in advance; evidence that she was more than pleased to show her father. She was so pleased that she'd given him the Ocarina of Time as payment for the service he'd done. That, and she'd said she felt some special "bond" between them.

If only she knew.

Link really wasn't sure what to do after that. Everywhere he went he was a stranger now. None of the people he'd once called friends even knew his name, let alone any of the things he'd done on their behalf. Not his sworn brother Darunia, not his supposed fiancée Ruto, certainly not the Gerudo that had been so impressed with him before. The Kokiri would probably remember him, but he certainly wasn't going back to the village without Navi. Bad enough he was going to grow old when they would not, but he'd be damned if he was going to be called the boy without a fairy again. Or worse, the boy who'd lost his fairy. That would be too much.

So he went off on a great quest to find her, one that spanned several years. During that time he'd fought many monsters, and had even travelled to another world, but still he could not find the one thing he'd wanted more than anything else. He'd only stopped after coming to a couple of conclusions about his life. The first was one that he'd come to accept fairly quickly: No, Zelda had NOT made a mistake, she'd simply sent him back to a time before anyone had met him. She either could not bring the memories of what had happened back with him, or had chosen not to. Either way, he didn't blame her. He knew from experience that having memories of things that never happened could make things very difficult. It was simple, once he really thought about it.

The second conclusion had been much more difficult for Link to come to terms with: Navi… Navi was gone. She'd left on her own, without even giving him a single good reason for why she was leaving. And wherever she was, she did NOT want to be found. Maybe she thought she was doing him a favor. Maybe it was so that he could live a "normal" life as a Hylian. Maybe she'd been ordered to leave him by some higher power. Or maybe… well, it didn't really matter, did it? She was gone. Just like his innocence, just like his friendships that never happened, just like his home.

Why?

Why him? Hadn't he done his part to help the world? Hadn't he been the key to bringing peace to no less than two kingdoms? So why was he the only person who seemed to be worse off than when he'd started out?

He had nothing. Where was the childhood he was supposed to reclaim? He had no parents, and he wasn't entirely sure how the people he'd long thought of as his "family" would react when they realized that he wasn't really one of them. Besides, he was… different now, and not just physically. Though the Kokiri were all older than him, Link had seen and experienced things that they hadn't. The monsters, the fighting, the maddening puzzles, the awkwardness of shifting back and forth through time, and those Din-damned masks that left him screaming in pain _every single time_ he put them on his face! And those were just the parts that stood out. He'd not wish these things on anyone, let alone the simple, innocent Kokiri. No matter what body he was in he could never undo the changes his mind had gone through just to survive. It seemed that after Zelda had reset everything everyone had gotten their lives back but him. He could never go back to being a care-free child whose biggest worry was whether Mido would pick on him that day or not. He would have to start over.

Somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

Hyrule was simply too painful for him, then. He'd had plenty of Rupees from his adventures, it was just a matter of finding a new spot to settle in. He'd thought of staying in Termina; they at least remembered the things he'd done for them. Well some of them, anyhow. The ones who'd seen his real self and not one of the masks. Even still, he found the faces there too similar to the ones he was already trying to leave behind, and so he'd simply picked a direction and started riding.

He hadn't stopped since.

Epona never complained about the long hours they spent on the road; she'd always been good to him like that. Some days Link wondered if the horse actually remembered all the time they'd spent together. They went from town to town, village to village, country to country. Link had seen many great things in his travels; great cities far larger than anything in Hyrule, exotic people and places that were both foreign and amazing. He'd seen many terrible evils as well. He'd laughed and he'd fought and slept in many places, even made a few new friends along the way, but they'd all been lacking a certain something.

He just didn't belong there.

None of those places felt like home.

It was natural, he supposed.

Perhaps he'd been traveling so long that the road was home now.

…

What a horrible thought.

As the memories fade and the present returns, Link realizes something: He's not angry anymore. Not like he was before at least. Sure, the losses still hurt, but it was the dull ache of an old scar rather than the painful sting of a fresh wound. No, he was just tired now. Tired of wandering, tired of hurting, tired of being aimless, and tired of having nobody to talk to but a horse. Most of all, he was sick and tired of running away, and he was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

For the first time in years he considers returning to Hyrule. He was just a year shy of the age he'd been when he'd helped seal Ganon away, and the north road would have him on Hyrule's outskirts in just over a day's ride. It wasn't like the whole place was bad, after all. He'd want no part of the more populated areas, certainly, but maybe he could settle down for a bit at the quiet ranch in the middle of Hyrule field. He didn't really need money, but it would be nice to have a steady supply of food and shelter for a change, and farm work would be a nice change of pace from the constant riding. As a bonus, it was about the only place in Hyrule that didn't seem to have a dungeon or temple or ruin hiding in the area. He was sure Epona would be happy to see Malon again, too, and after all the fuss Link had gone through convincing the girl to let him buy Epona he was absolutely certain that Malon would be thrilled to have her horse back. And maybe, just maybe, he'd go back to the forest and say hello to the Kokiri. He'd always regretted leaving without at least saying goodbye to them. Most of them probably wouldn't recognize him, but maybe that would make it easier to explain things. Maybe they would even understand, but even if they didn't he could at least lay some of the ghosts of his so-called childhood to rest.

After downing the rest of his drink, Link sighed to himself and got up to leave. North it was, then, and why not?

Any direction's as good as any other when you don't know where you're going. At least now he knew how he was going to get there.

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><p><em>I can't be the only one who thought that OoTMM Link got the short end of the stick in the end._

_Wow, been ages since I posted anything. Been playing Skyward Sword lately, so I've been on a bit of a Zelda kick lately. Trying to put together something larger, but this will do for the time being._

_R & R, folks. Do yer worst. _


End file.
